What Was Lost
by Sebe
Summary: Post 6x11. Unstable!Sam. Sam may get lost, but Dean always finds him. Allusion to Powers!Sammy.


Author's Notes: So who else lost their minds Friday when Vampire Diaries showed up in the wrong place at the wrong time? A week? A whole nother week? Really? I don't know if I can make it that long. So, anyway, here's something to try and ease the pain for a few more days.

Additional notes at the end of the story just in case something didn't make sense the way I phrased it. Enjoy and please review!

Summary: Post 6x11. Unstable!Sam. Sam may get lost, but Dean always finds him. Allusion to Powers!Sammy.

**What Was Lost**

It was Michael's turn this time, the older archangel was more a fan of mental tortures, though he did dabble in physical as well.

"Your brother let you fall." He infused with false sympathy. "No matter what else happened, who or what else interfered, that fact remains. Dean was going to let you walk into the worst part of Hell and stay there for all eternity."

He rounded on Sam, grasping his chin and pulling it up off his blood-soaked chest to look at him. Even if Sam still had the will to lash out, he was unable to the way he was bound; wrists tied above his head in barbed wire, his body's own weight pulling at his joints.

"He cared nothing for you. He let the worlds' greater good, your father's greater good, win out over any bond you may have shared." Sam saw Lucifer shift a bit in interest at his brother's words. They all knew he wasn't talking just about Sam and Dean. Sam was grateful for the curiosity piqued in Lucifer, hoping it would spare his own younger brother a few minutes agony.

Sam usually forced Adam behind him, protected him from what he could when they were left to roam, but bound as he was, the youngest of their cursed bloodline was on his own.

"Your brother saw the darkness in you." Michael sneered, uncommon for him and Sam thought maybe the angel was finally cracking. "He saw evil and he chose to be a good son and cast you down."

Michael smiled sickly and Lucifer apeared both angry and maybe, layers deep, worried. Sam's current torturer circled him before getting close to his face again.

"Lucifer and I, you and Dean. For all your protests and all your thrashings against destiny…you are exactly like us."

Sam started laughing and couldn't stop. Belatedly, he realized that sometime while he had been watching Michael slowly go mad, the same had been happening to him. There were worse things, especially here, he supposed.

When he got himself mostly under control, Sam tried to look up at the angels, holding both their attentions now. He couldn't quite manage to lift his head, but he turned his eyes up enough that he could tell where they were.

"There's…a difference…A big difference." Sam smiled, warm and bloody and loving. "Dean never gave up on me."

Michael appeared confused and angry at Sam's defiance. Lucifer looked at Sam with something that might have been envy. When the elder angel next raised his hand to torment Sam, Lucifer stayed his hand. When Michael turned on him in rage, the most beautiful of the angels spoke to his brother.

"Look at them. These inferior creatures we could crush with a thought." Lucifer gazed into Michael's eyes with an approximation of sorrow and loss and a plea for a too late understanding. He released the other's arm harshly, turning away. "Look at what we should have been."

The Devil walked right past Adam, cowering in the corner, and Sam wept shortly with relief.

The memory of that particular interaction between the heavenly brothers was one that would continue to stick in Sam's mind centuries after the blackness and blood had taken over again. For all their malevolence and ill-intent, they had seemed…not as human, but as two lost brothers who could have had everything.

"-am. Sam! Sammy, come on…"

Sam came around to the feeling of being cold. He was used to it because Lucifer ran cold and the Cage was everything of him, but this…felt different. This chill was external, not drilled into bone. Sam fought hard to think. He had to concentrate. Dean had told him…

Dean.

Dean told him to think about something simple when he got lost; something mundane that he could see in his mind. His big brother had immediately thought to himself what a wussy thing that was for him to say, but it was Sam and he didn't care. (Sam hadn't told him he heard that).

And Sam never told him what it was that he focused on either, feeling safer in being the only one who knew. Couldn't be tricked that way….Also, he didn't know if Dean would ever let him live it down.

Or maybe he would. Who knew nowadays? Dean was more permissive with Sam than he'd ever been. When Sam was lucid enough to know he was being placated he was both annoyed by it, and loved his brother for it.

Just concentrate. Worn jacket, faded jeans, annoying rock music, and _home_. Sam didn't think it made much difference that his focal point wasn't a thing, but a concept, a person.

"Dean."

"Sam? Sammy? You with me now?"

Sam tried to nod, but sensation returned slowly. He knew he was cold, but there was something wrapped around his shoulders and two points of extra warmth, one on his shoulder, the other on the side of his face. He flexed his toes experimentally and felt the crunch, but not the cold, of the snow beneath him. Huh, feeling must come back to different parts at different times.

It was something of a puzzle that he was interested in, could get lost in solving. How come he could feel his chest? How come his fingers tingled like the circulation had been gone too long? Why couldn't-

Sam shook his head, stopping himself. He wasn't supposed to let himself get lost in those kinds of thoughts. They were usually pointless and could lead to other, very bad roads of thought. Dean had said so.

Dean.

Not able to get his mouth to work around more than one word right now without biting his cheeks bloody, Sam settled for reaching out to where he knew his brother was hovering nervously. He clenched tingling fingers in Dean's shirt.

Shirt? Where was his jacket? It was freezing outside. How could Dean go out without proper gear, and did Sam really have to remind him every time? If he knew about it, their dad would….no, no, Bobby. Bobby would be pissed. Bobby…

"Sam?" Dean was crouched in front of him now on eye-level. He looked haggard and worn. Dean met Sam's eyes with some urgency, but kept his voice level, a real feat for him.

Dean had been trying so hard with Sam, for Sam, and his little brother only wished he could say how grateful he was for the patience; but he was too afraid that any complex idea like that that he felt so strongly about would only end up garbled and nonsensical enough that it scared Dean even more.

"Sam, I know you're not all here right now, but I need you to come around a bit, okay? Just a little so I can get you back inside."

Sam didn't raise that mop of hair and Dean sighed, repositioning his hold to start pulling his brother up. But with a suddenness that startled Dean, the grip Sam had on his shirt pulled him back to the ground. Sam raised bruised eyes to look at him then.

Dean didn't move. He knew this. And Sam wouldn't hurt him. It was just something his brother needed to know sometimes.

Hazel eyes stared right at Dean's face for a tense minute. When he thought Dean's attention was wavering, Sam flicked his eyes, quick as lightening, down a bit, then back up. All at once, Sam sagged in relief and exhaustion.

"Whoa, whoa, I gotcha. Alright?" Dean wrapped his jacket tighter around Sam's shivering form. Cursing himself for not grabbing a blanket or something on his mad dash out of Bobby's house. Needless to say, that had not been his main focus. No, that was _'find Sam, find Sam now, what if Sam's been kidnapped again?, I'm gonna kill Sam.'_…What? So Dean had a few mood swings of his own, just that he had nothing on baby brother, that's all.

"What were you thinking running out in the dead of winter with just pajamas on?" Dean chided, even as he checked his blue-tinged little brother over. At least he was still shivering. No hypothermia yet.

Sam looked around for the first time. Finding himself someplace strange that he didn't remember going wasn't exactly new him to now. And that sucked like you wouldn't believe. The worst part was always those worried green eyes that always, inevitably, showed up beside him.

This time he was in an open field covered in snow. One set of prints he could see, bare feet, were set at a winding, wandering walk, while the second pair of heavy boots was more of a hurried run.

"How could you forget your shoes?" Dean was chastising lightly. "All these little excursions of yours, you always forget something, but did it have to be your shoes in the dead of winter in freakin' South Dakota?"

Sam smiled, Dean wasn't mad or even annoyed, but he didn't like to be scared or worried or hurt, anything that left him vulnerable; so he hid it behind antagonistic words and anger.

Feeling finally returned to the entirety of his body, Sam moved to stand up. He actually made it an inch or two off the ground before Dean shoved him back into the soft snow.

"Nu-uh, no way. Blue lips, pajamas, no shoes, hair's freakin' wet from the shower. Your bangs are icicles. You're not walking anywhere little brother."

Dean set about quickly putting his brother's arms into the leather jacket already draped around him. He zipped it up and swaddled Sam with every spare scrap he could find.

Sam watched all the while, smiling genuinely, which was why he was sure it was a melted snowflake that rolled down his cheek and nothing more.

"You never gave up on me."

Dean didn't even pause.

"Of course not. What kind of douche would do that?" He tried for flippant, but realized this situation may require a bit more depth. Dean decided to go for true, short, and sweet; the broad strokes. He could do detail work when Sam wasn't freezing to death. Dean sighed. "Sam, I will never, ever give up on you. Human, psychic, the Devil, soulless…you're always gonna be mine, Sammy. No way out of this deal…Now let's get you out of here, huh?"

Sam nodded and Dean placed one arm under Sam's knees and another behind his back. Sam threw his arm over Dean's shoulder, his head falling to his brother's shirt in exhaustion. They began the fairly long walk to Bobby's house. Sam briefly wondered how Dean could carry him, but then remembered: They could do anything for each other…plus Sam had lost some weight over the months which probably made it more manageable.

Just as Sam was beginning to doze off, Dean spoke up.

"What are you always looking for when you do that?"

Sam knew what he meant. What he was looking for when he wasn't sure it was Dean. When it could have been the not-Dean that the Caged angels had loved to use on him. What did he see that proved to him that this was reality.

Biting his lip, Sam shook his head and looked up apologetically.

"I can't tell you. If I told you, I wouldn't know how to tell it was you." Because some days, he thought he was back there and that Dean and Bobby and Cas had all been a dearest wish brought to life, so that it might be snatched away again in the cruelest fashion.

"…Alright." Dean nodded, never breaking stride. "But you'll tell me someday?"

Sam thought about a time when he couldn't hear hounds behind him, the screams from their youngest brother as he watched Sam get ripped apart over and over. When sulfur hadn't started to smell like clean laundry and the fire in his eyes didn't threaten to burn through his eyelids if he closed them…

But it was getting better. Dean said so and Sam thought so too, so maybe…

"…Maybe. I don't know, but…maybe."

Seemingly satisfied with the answer, Dean continued on, his brother safely in his arms as he marched back to their home away from home. Where Bobby would be waiting with a hot meal, a shot gun and a smack with a baseball cap to the back of both their heads for _'runnin' off like that'_ and _'lettin him run off like that'._

As he dozed off, Sam thought about Dean's question and never took his eyes off that spot on his brother's chest. That one tiny, less than an inch big, spot that he could find with his eyes closed. He smiled secretly to himself. Because Bobby may have given him the amulet, but Sam had picked out the length of cord and knew where it hung above his brother's heart.

A/N: So I'm thinking that whenever Sam was tortured by his 'brother' in the Cage, they didn't know that Dean had thrown the amulet away. They only took the form they were most familiar with and that was when he was wearing it, since Dean had worn it most his life.

Therefore, Dean with the amulet=Not!Dean, Dean without amulet=Dean!


End file.
